Deborah O'Neill (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you very much. It seems the minister has decided that he's not going to answer any questions, and I certainly have quite a lot that I want to put on the record. So, I will continue with some comments and a few questions, and I invite the minister to respond at any point in time. What we have seen with this deal with regard to ABC and SBS is really outrageous. And this government has proven it is utterly desperate and bereft of integrity by bowing to the One Nation party's demands to attack our national broadcaster in order to scrape their flawed media ownership changes through this parliament.

As I said earlier, the Turnbull government has been trying to repeal this two-out-of-three rule for 18 months, but they haven't been able to do it on merit. So, this is why we are where we are. The pact between the Turnbull government and One Nation is regarded by many, in the commentary since 16 August, as a direct assault on the independence of our public broadcaster, the ABC and the SBS. I'm going to quote from Andrew Tillett and Max Mason in TheAustralian Financial Review from 15 August 2017. And I do want to put on the record my respect for the great work that our journalists do and their significant contribution to our community. I want to reflect on Andrew Tillett, who I recall as a junior cadet in a regional area where I live, outside of Sydney, many, many years ago. He is a person who really takes the standards of journalism very much to heart. He writes very carefully and asks very incisive questions. This is what Andrew Tillett and Max Mason had to say in the AFR on 15 August:

One Nation clinched a deal for the biggest assault on the ABC's independence in decades.

That's how it's being characterised. As part of the deal, the government has agreed to the insidious call for this competitive neutrality inquiry into the ABC and SBS. There is no way you can dress that up as anything other than a direct vehicle to attack the ABC and SBS and to diminish its role. And in response, Bernard Keane, from Crikey, said:

… the problem is that the inquiry isn't limited to … the ABC's online operations generally. It's focused on all the practices of the national broadcasters. And the problem is, the entire rationale for the national broadcasters violates competitive neutrality. Competitive neutrality principles require that government bodies are not subsidised to compete with commercial entities. But that's the entire raison d'etre of the ABC and SBS. If they were required to only engage in activities where there was market failure, what would they provide?

This goes to the heart of the attack we are seeing on the SBS and the ABC—a determination to clip its wings, to cut it back, to shut it down.

Indeed, in my notes I took yesterday, as Senator Hanson was making her comments, she protested and said, 'No-one should see this as an attack on the ABC.' But she also said in her speech that they should give up their slush fund. That is how she characterised the funding of the ABC, as a 'slush fund'. I think it is clear, after her contributions in the course of this debate, that Senator Hanson is going after ABC funding.

If you need any further proof that the Turnbull government are absolutely hypocritical in this context, with no clear vision for the Australian media, then you need look no further than this competitive neutrality inquiry. This inquiry is aimed at ensuring the SBS doesn't compete with the commercial broadcasting sector, yet twice now the coalition government have attempted to amend the SBS Act to permit the SBS to increase its advertising and enable product placement, in direct competition with the commercial broadcasters.

Labor believe that the ABC and SBS should have a presence in the digital media space as part of promoting diversity in our media. Labor believe that the content they produce should be readily accessible online. And Labor congratulate the ABC and SBS on their achievements with iView, SBS On Demand and online news. We affirm the recent speech by the ABC chair, Justin Milne, which was delivered at Parliament House quite recently at the ABC parliamentary showcase, where everybody, as I recall from the many years I've attended, shows up to get their photos with B1 and B2, those iconic images of the ABC for entire generations of Australians. If Senator Hanson goes ahead with this and doesn't reconsider pulling the two-out of-three rule out and her attack on the ABC, we might end up with only B1, and what a loss that would be! We are talking about serious cuts here. I wish to put the comments that Justin Milne made on the 16 August on the record here because they are very pertinent to the debate we are undertaking. He said:

Now, I may be an ABC ingenue but I’ve been around media for a while and can tell you that the advent of the internet, smart phones, instant global connectivity, Google, Facebook, Netflix and machine learning all mean that the changes we are experiencing today will be the biggest media has ever experienced.

In the past, we have accepted the "Mass Media" model—newspapers and TV stations publish when it suits them. If the audience misses the show, bad luck and if the audience wants to provide feedback, they can write a letter. In the future, we will demand that our media uses information about us and the world to provide an intelligent, personalised service, unique to each of us, available exactly when and where we want it—anywhere on the planet.

Today the ABC is one of Australia’s greatest cultural treasures, its most trusted broadcaster and a fundamental part of our thriving democracy. It will be tomorrow too.

And while we might receive some attention in the press from certain quarters—allegedly venturing into territory where we have no business, I assure you that this couldn’t be further from the truth.

The ABC has a clear mandate to serve all Australians …

And that is without the tinkering the government has promised to undertake. He said very clearly:

The ABC has a clear mandate to serve all Australians; to provide broadcast and digital media programs of broad appeal, and to reflect the diversity and multicultural character of the Australian community.

We are proud to live up to our Charter obligations. Our people come to work every day knowing they are doing a job which the public values. The Corporation is not reticent about exercising its legislative remit.

He went on to talk about the noise of recent weeks and applauded Australia as a democracy that has benefited from a dual-media system for 85 years—having the public broadcaster alongside commercial media. He claimed:

This media environment has ensured vibrancy and diversity, for the good of all Australians.

The level of criticism that the ABC has been subject to in the course of this debate is nothing like we've ever seen before. I think the remarks that were delivered by Justin Milne really give voice to the attack that that very important institution is experiencing right now.

Senator McAllister sent me an article that came out with some figures. It's the Essential Report. It's a survey that asked about trust in media. It says:

Overall, trust in media has fallen a little since this question was asked last year – however rankings remain much the same.

And this continues to today. It also says:

The most trusted media were ABC TV news and current affairs—

Sixty-three per cent said that they trust it a lot—

… SBS TV news and current affairs (61%) and ABC radio news and current affairs (58%).

Why we are at a point where we have a government that is willing to trade off diversity with One Nation for an attack on the ABC simply doesn't make sense to me.

Senator Fifield, I've got a couple of questions that I would like you to answer. The first one is: now that the government has decided to subsidise for-profit commercial media to the tune of $60 million as part of the deal with Senator Nick Xenophon and to the tune of $30 million for Foxtel, will the government promise to refund SBS all the funds that it cut from it, which is less than the $90 million that it's given to commercial media? The second question I have for you, Minister, is: will the grant of funds to commercial media be transparent and open to public scrutiny? If so, how will that process take place? The third question is: is it now government policy to subsidise for-profit commercial media while removing funding from public broadcasters? Those are three very direct questions. I'd appreciate some answers, Minister.